


Loose Ends

by Ahmerst



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Body Worship, Clear's Bad End, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-03-19 18:44:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3620313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahmerst/pseuds/Ahmerst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bad end fix-it AU in which Mink infiltrates Oval Tower to exact his revenge, only to find Aoba already there and under Clear’s ‘care.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rough draft of this fic was finished up before there were any re:code translations out, so apologies in advance for any discrepancies in Desire's behavior because of that!

Mink found Aoba last, after the confrontation. After Toue was nothing more than well-dressed weight on a floor. No pulse to pump more blood into the pool of red already beneath him, eyes glassy as the monocle he wore. Now satisfied that at last his revenge had been realized, Mink turned on his heel to make his way out of the tower.

It hadn’t been on purpose, finding Aoba. An act of serendipity instead. One wrong turn that lead to two, then a third. A corridor lined with cells, the clink of chains drawing his attention, sparking darkened memories he’d held onto for so long in order to get this far. He moved past the cells with brief glances into each one.

There was a body in the last cell. Something small and hunched over that registered as human only because Mink could see flesh. He paused for a moment, one hand on the bars as his eyes narrowed to make out what he could in the dark. The silver glint of heavy chains, the shine of heavy shackles. Strands of blue.

Breaking the lock on the cell was simple, the procedure a matter of muscle memory at this point.

He wasn’t entirely sure what he found could be called Aoba. The occupant of the cell was nothing but skin stretched over bone, sallow cheeks and scraggly hair. He didn’t look alive, borderline unreal. Like an ancient, faded manuscript on tortured souls, where he was the illustration in the margins drawn by someone who had a slippery grasp on human anatomy and an all too fantastical imagination.

Aoba’s breathing was the faintest thing, skin cold as night when Mink’s hands moved over it. The only color to his flesh were the surgical scars and sharp bruises where the shackles weighed too heavy against him. Mink asked if he could stand, and saw the answer without needing Aoba to speak. He couldn’t stand, not when he had no feet. 

Just as he couldn’t see when he had no eyes.

\---  


Mink took Aoba home. Not to the house where Aoba had resided, and not to Scratch headquarters. But really, truly _home_. A quiet cabin in a sea of wilderness, all tall trees and clean air. A place to die with dignity.

Except Aoba didn’t die. Not that he lived either. He existed instead in a sort of limbo. It seemed cruel to let him go on like this, crueler yet to stop him. Mink could only vaguely imagine what it must have been like for Aoba, what it continued to be like.

Aoba, who’d had so much stripped away. Autonomy and free will, range of movement. He was less capable than even an animal, confined to bed and unable to care for himself. So Mink cared for him. He wasn’t exactly sure why.

Loose ends, he told himself. He hated them, and it became his forte to clean them up.

Aoba was his loose end.

\---

Aoba’s hair had grown wild as sprawling ivy, fanning across the bed he spent his days in. Mink trimmed Aoba’s bangs when they began to veil his face, hands steady and careful. The same hands tended to Aoba’s hair, wove in amulets and charms, things meant to protect and strengthen. If they worked, Mink had no idea. Aoba showed no sign that they did. He also showed no sign that they didn’t.

Mink sighed as he sat bedside, one long lock of hair in hand. He rolled it between his fingers, eyeing how the rich blue faded, lightened. The longer it grew, the less the color reached, until the ends were nothing but the white of sun bleached bones. He had no idea what it meant, and no amount of research had enlightened him.

He’d stopped trying to ask Aoba about it. He’d stopped speaking to Aoba at all. In the beginning he’d talked, said more than he ever had to Aoba when they’d first known each other. He thought if he kept speaking, Aoba would eventually respond in turn. He never did. The few noises Aoba made were wordless mumbles, voice far away.

He was not _here_ , and the day Mink accepted that was the day he stopped speaking as well.

Now they passed their time in silence, the loudest things around them the flutter of Huracan’s wings and the soft hum or Ren’s motor.

Mink had found Ren in the tower by accident, discarded in a cold and cluttered storage room. Mink nearly left him there, turning his back, ready to leave before he found his feet planted. Ren was Aoba’s. Aoba, the loose end. Ren, a loose end by association. Mink ducked back into the room to scoop the motionless lump of blue under his arm.

Mink hadn’t turned Ren on until they’d reached the cabin. He’d set him on the dining room table, knitting his fingers after he activated Ren, waiting to see the condition of the allMATE. The second Ren came to life, Mink knew he was a lost cause. Ren’s eyes glittered with corrupted data, gaze unfocused.

When Mink took Ren to the bedroom, setting him on Aoba’s lap, there had been a wisp of a reaction. A brief near second where something in Aoba shifted, and Ren picked his head up. The noise Ren made was distorted and deep, like his words had been scrambled. Aoba’s fingers twitched though his hands stayed at his sides, useless as they’d been since Mink rescued him.

When Mink returned hours later, neither of them had moved, Aoba still sitting up against the headboard and Ren in his lap. When it came time to lay Aoba down to sleep, Mink shifted Ren to Aoba’s side. When he stood back to look down at his loose ends he saw Aoba’s fingers twitch again. Mink took his wrist gently in hand, bringing it to rest on top of Ren. 

Aoba’s fingers curled, and this time his breath left him in a soft, hoarse noise. Progress, Mink thought, and he was up the entire night waiting for more. When the sun rose, nothing had changed. It was enough for now he decided as he rose to make breakfast. Ren’s motor whirred, louder than the even in and out of Aoba’s breath as he slept.

\---

Teaching sign language to someone who did not use their hands to begin with a useless endeavor, as Mink found out quickly.

He put his own hands to better use after that, crafted small trinkets and mixed salves that had been taught to him by people long passed. He took them to town when the weather was fair and the food in the fridge grew scarce. He left Huracan to watch over the cabin, one eye on his coil in case of a change. 

Several seasons of selling his wares passed before his coil chimed with a message.

“He seems particularly fond of the dog today.”

Mink had never made it home in such a short time. He made no attempt to discard his boots or coat, tracking in slushy snow and chill as he strode toward his bedroom. He wasn’t surprised to find Aoba leaning against the headboard as he’d been left, blankets up to his navel. What he was surprised to see was movement near Aoba’s waist. It was his hand, moving slowly but surely between Ren’s ears.

”How long has he been doing this?” Mink asked, sparing a glance at Huracan.

“He began a few minutes before I messaged you.”

“Has he done anything else?”

“Not since I contacted you, but I felt as it was a fair amount of improvement since he first arrived it was worth noting.”

Mink nodded as he neared the bed, sitting in the chair he normally occupied. Aoba’s hand paused, and while he had no eyes Mink knew Aoba was looking to him. Mink’s heart gave a lurch of excitement, and he reached out to place a hand over Aoba’s, eager for a reaction, a sign that in the mess of his mind there was something of him left.

Aoba’s expression pulled into a grimace, an automatic reaction to touch. Animalistic and basic.

Mink had never been so happy to see such a look. He let his hand fall from Aoba’s as he sat back in his chair, cool relief rushing through him.

Things were slow to change after that, but change they did. Where once Aoba had been ragdoll limp when bathed, he would now shift at the pressure of a washcloth, goosebumps breaking out against his skin. He licked his lips when fed, and kept Ren near when in bed.

But he wasn’t always _right_. There were times when he’d turn his head toward nothingness, listening to silence. His hands would pet a spot where Ren had been, but no longer was, seemingly unaware that all he was coming into contact with was a blanket. The noises he made were sparse and nonsensical, tongue catching on his teeth more often than not.

Mink wondered where Aoba was within his own mind, how much of his journey was left, and if he’d ever finish it.

Seasons changed and Mink continued to care for Aoba. He shifted Aoba often enough to keep him from getting bedsores, trimmed his nails and brushed the length of his hair. Cleaned what remained beneath his blindfold. Mink didn’t tend to the scars that began above where Aoba’s knees should have been. There was no reason to. The removal of his legs was no hack job, instead done with surgical precision and care, free of old infection and troubled healing.

Clear knew exactly what he was doing.

Finding Clear had been as much as a surprise as Ren, and ignoring him had been just as much of an option. Not because Mink considered him a loose end, but because he was in the way. The robot smelled of nothing. Not bolts or gears or oil. No synthetic scent. Just emptiness. Mink was sure he had a fragrance before, something light and clean. 

Sea breeze.

Mink left him smelling of blown fuses and burned not-quite-skin and didn’t look back.


	2. Chapter 2

Autumn arrived, and still Aoba was slow to come around. He would stroke Ren for hours on end, his hands a repeating loop, the faux fur they moved over starting to become worn from wear. Ren’s eyes continued to sparkle, and he made as much sense as Aoba when he spoke. Mink tried to fix him once, opening his interface only to be immediately thwarted by a barrage of errors.

His backup plan was to take Ren into town with him to see if the local mechanic could help. He'd come to Aoba early in the morning while Aoba's breathing still had the deep and even rhythm it took on in sleep. Mink gently slipped his hands beneath the allMATE, scooping it up. Aoba's breath went shallow and short, his head turning toward where Mink stood. His hands clenched where Ren had been.

Mink was aware, more keenly than ever, that Aoba was not human in the same sense that he was. While Aoba may have been created through artificial means, he was still a... what? God, deity, a divine being? Finding a name seemed wholly unimportant in the face of all that had happened. What was important was keeping him content.

Returning Ren to Aoba, Mink sat beside them. He watched quietly as Aoba ran his hands over Ren, taking in his shape, expression unchanging. The pale morning light caught on each and every adornment in his hair, glittering between the layers as the sun spilled across them. The fear he radiated had begun to fade, so slow a change that Mink hardly noticed. The sharpness had softened into something saccharine, sheer and intoxicating. 

\---

The thick of winter was upon them when Mink’s coil next went off. It wasn’t a message as much as it was an alert, one he’d set to go off if Huracan was set into sleep mode by anyone’s hand but his own. He stared at the message, reading it three times before it disappeared. Something colder than the falling snow outside ran through his veins.

He was out of the small shop he sold to and on his bike in three breaths, the snow chains on his tires spinning against hard packed snow as his engine roared to life. 

The air was all wrong in the cabin when he opened the door. It was thick and heady, smoky and sweet like burning incense. It was also as bone-chillingly icy as the outdoors. Mink went straight for the bedroom.

He found Huracan and Ren on the bed, the both of them deactivated and lying amongst rucked up covers. Aoba was not in the bed, but on the floor, arms draped over the sill of the open window, shoulders heaving- or was he simply trembling- with exertion. Mink stepped toward him slow and silent as he would approach a wild animal, within grabbing distance by the time Aoba’s head jerked to look at him.

The blindfold was gone, and his eyeless sockets were glaring, the skin around them pink and raw from being pawed at. 

“Explain,” Aoba hissed, voice faded and scratchy from disuse. His teeth clicked together from the cold, lips nearly as blue as his hair. “Explain right fucking now or I’ll make your eyes as good as mine.”

Mink didn’t explain, instead hooking his hands under Aoba’s arms and hauling him away from the window. Aoba made good on his threat, fingers curling as his nails scrabbled to sink into Mink’s skin. He scratched at any flesh he could find, leaving red wakes that didn’t quite bead with blood. When it became apparent to him that it was ineffective, his hands balled into fists, striking again at Mink.

The extent of his weakness was apparent then, the thump of his fists barely enough to bruise, let alone do true damage. By the time Mink had pulled him onto the bed, his movements had slowed, breathing labored as he uselessly fought on.

“I swear to God,” Aoba rasped out. “If you helped that stupid jellyfish-brained idiot do this to me-”

“I didn’t,” Mink cut in. 

That seemed an unexpected answer to Aoba, his movements halting for a moment as he processed the words. Mink took the lull in his struggle to snag Aoba’s slim wrists in one hand, holding them above his head. Aoba jerked uselessly until his expression of twisted anger began to ease to an exhausted weariness. Mink didn’t let go.

“C’mon,” Aoba coaxed. It was hard to hear him. “Ease up on me.”

“Only if you agree not to attempt escaping.”

Aoba snorted.

“What, afraid I’m going to run away?”

Mink didn’t answer. He waited instead, jaw set as Aoba shivered, seemingly unaware that he was doing so.

“Fine,” Aoba eventually spat, and when Mink released his wrists his hands remained where they’d been held. From the way his head fell to the side, Mink wondered if the fleeting burst of energy had left him in its entirety. 

Mink stood when Aoba showed no sign of moving, going to the small closet in the room and pulling from it a warm woolen cardigan, the usual flannel he dressed Aoba in lacking in protection from the elements he’d exposed himself to. As he turned back to the bed, he found Aoba with his hands at his eyes, prodding the skin around them.

“Don’t,” Mink commanded.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Aoba mimicked, then laughed at his own imitation. “What could go wrong? Afraid I’ll poke my own eye out?”

Mink pinched the bridge of his nose. He already missed the silence that had reigned supreme in his cabin for so long.

Aoba squirmed weakly as Mink settled the cardigan over Aoba’s shoulders, threading his arms through the sleeves. A tremor still ran through Aoba’s body, but the dark shade of his lips had begun to lighten. Belatedly, Mink went to the window to close it, careful to latch the lock. He stared at the white expanse outside, gaze unfocused as he tried to process all that had happened in such a short period.

It wasn’t easy. First things first, he needed to mitigate whatever damage Aoba had managed to inflict upon himself.

“I need to clean your eyes,” Mink said. It wouldn’t do to have them become infected after all this time.

“That’s rich,” Aoba said, the corner of his lips pulling into a sneer. “Afraid I’ll manage to get worse?”

It was the truth, and Mink acknowledged it with a grunt as he stood bedside, slipping an arm under Aoba’s shoulders, the other bracing beneath Aoba’s thighs. Aoba went stiff as he was hoisted up, the muscles that were weak with disuse tensing. His hair dragged along the floor as Mink carried him, trailing along the bathroom tiles as he was set on the closed lid of the toilet.

He turned his head at every noise, from the sound of the cabinet opening to the unscrewing of the solution cap. His tongue flicked over his chapped lips nervously, eyebrows drawing together when Mink’s hand came up to cup the nape of his neck and hold him still.

“Don’t move,” Mink said, letting the hand that held the solution come to rest against Aoba’s cheek to keep it steady.

The split second the solution washed over Aoba’s eyelashes, he was snapping his head away with a hiss, teeth clenched and grinding. The solution streaked down his cheek, dripping onto the cardigan.

“I told you not to move,” Mink said curtly.

“Sorry for not sitting all prim and proper,” Aoba said, and his breath came in short, shallow pants. “Can’t say I’m too fond of people fucking around with my eyes these days.”

“You’ve had no trouble with me cleaning your eyes before.”

“No shit, considering my mental abilities aren’t on par with a goddamn onion at this point.”

Mink sighed, deep and easy. He didn’t let go of Aoba, kept a hold on him, one hand still resting against his cheek. He waited for Aoba to stop grinding his teeth, for his breathing to even. It didn’t happen. Aoba stayed wound up and anxious, the wet pink of muscle and tissue behind his lids showing when he blinked. 

“Don’t tell me you’re still going to try this,” snarled under his breath.

“Mmhmm,” Mink hummed, his hand leaving Aoba’s neck to run up through his hair. Mink snared his fingers in it, pulling back until Aoba’s face was turned up.

Aoba struggled as Mink tipped solution into his eyes, teeth bared and nostrils flaring. He jerked hard and his hands came up to grip at Mink’s forearm, fruitlessly trying to tear his arm away. Mink had found wounded animals with more strength, and while Aoba spit and snarled as a stream of curses and threats left his mouth, he couldn’t escape.

By the time Mink finished, the sounds that left Aoba had turned to low, tired growls, his hands no longer pushing at Mink’s arm, but gripping it to hold himself upright. When Mink released his hair, his head lolled back until it knocked against the wall. His hands fell slack to his sides

“That was fucking awful,” he muttered.

“You’ll have to grow used to it. If it’s painful, I can always give you something beforehand.”

“Never said it was painful. Just, fuck if I know. Terrible.”

Mink returned the solution to the cabinet, pausing to wash his hands. Aoba was ragdoll-flimsy when he was carried back to the bedroom. Beyond the odd convulsion and twitch, he showed no sign of wanting to speak, barely flinching back when Mink covered his eyes with a clean blindfold. 

It was hours before he spoke again. This time the sound was clearer, more vibrant. The anger is distrust was still there, but the scratch was fading.

“So, Toue,” he prompted.

“Gone.”

“Well that’s ominously vague. Take him down yourself?”

Mink nodded. Aoba didn’t respond right away, tapping his finger against the blanket that now covered him from the waist down.

“Okay, I’m gonna assume you either nodded or shook your head. Knowing your crazy ass, it was a nod. But I need a fucking bone here, okay? I can’t exactly see what you’re doing.”

“I personally attended to him,” Mink affirmed, eyes downcast with something bordering on embarrassment over his faux pas. 

Aoba lifted his hand from the blanket to card it through his hair, pausing when his fingertips moved over the woven in adornments. When he reached the end of his arm span, the hair still continuing long past it, he worried his teeth over his lower lip.

“Jesus, why’d you let it get this long, planning to play jump rope with it?”

“Would you like for me to cut it?” Mink offered.

Aoba ran his fingers through another sheet of his hair. “Is it a pain in the ass to wash?”

“As much as you would expect.”

“Cool, I’m keeping it long then.”

Mink shook his head and let out a long breath. What a troublesome person he’d decided to care for.

“God, I could really go for a steak and a slug of whiskey,” Aoba said. He brought his hand up to rub at his eyes, seemed to realize the impossibility of the action, and let it fall back into his lap. “Make that two slugs.”

“Bison and hot coffee good enough?”

“It’ll have to do for now, I guess,” Aoba said, and he nearly smiled, teeth flashing quicker than lightning.


	3. Chapter 3

“How long have I been cooped up here?” Aoba asked, head turned towards the window. The birdsong that trickled in was sparse. 

“Several seasons,” Mink said. He stood at the open window, working to fit a wire screen into the frame.

Aoba had tried to escape again, although this time he’d had less luck in shutting down Huracan before he could alert Mink. Mink had spotted him in the yard this time, snow up to his waist, hair fanning around him. His shirt was damp and frigid when Mink picked him up, and he put up no fight when Mink ran him a hot bath. It took an hour for the blue beneath his nails to fade.

Mink asked him why he was trying to leave, and Aoba seemed not to know. Parts of his mind were still unstable and distant, and Mink found himself unable to anchor any true irritation at his escape attempt. 

“Wow, talk about specific,” Aoba snorted. His head followed Mink’s footsteps when they moved across the room to sit beside Aoba. Mink eyed the still steaming bowl of soup on the bedside table.

“You should eat,” Mink said.

“There are a lot of things I _should_ do,” Aoba said, tone mocking though his hands were feeling around the nightstand, cupping the bowl gingerly before pulling it into his lap. When one hand went back to the table, Mink silently slid the spoon closer to his fingertips. “Doesn’t mean I’m actually going to do them.”

Mink didn’t argue, didn’t rise to the baiting tone of Aoba’s voice. He found too late he’d never figured out exactly what he was going to do with Aoba. For so long he seemed nothing more than vegetative, his recovery so slow as to be negligible. Now here he was, weak in body but strong in spirit, a far cry from what Mink had grown used to.

Mink watched as Aoba dipped his spoon into his bowl. He didn’t manage to get much, but what he did he fed to himself. There was a pang in Mink’s chest at the sight, a kind an emptiness that echoed. He missed the sense of being relied on, of maintaining life when so much of his world had been concerned only with taking it. 

Now his role had been diminished, though not abolished by any means. The person that he cared for now was not who he’d found in Platinum Jail. It was instead what he’d originally been in search for, dragged to the surface through violence and pain. And now it was in his bed, spilling soup down its shirt and effecting an air of normalcy.

“Why are you here?” Mink asked after Aoba gave up on his spoon, instead bringing the bowl up to his lips to drink deeply from it.

“Y’know, I’ve heard a lot of dumb things come out of your mouth, but that’s in the running for the dumbest,” Aoba said, setting his now-empty bowl aside. 

“What caused you to come forward in Aoba’s place?” Mink asked, not bothering to mince words.

Aoba ran his tongue along his upper teeth before clicking his tongue, shook his head like he’d been expecting the question.

“Listen here, tall, dark and hair-brained. I _am_ Aoba, despite whatever label anyone else wants to put on me, and I’m real sick of being treated like the weird cousin you see every Christmas but never make eye contact with. I’m as much of him as he is of me. Hell, think of me as the fun side.”

”Making your other side?” Mink prompted.

”A wet blanket. And clearly way too trusting of the wrong people, which is fuckin’ ironic all things considered.”

Mink leaned forward, elbows on his knees and fingers knit together in front of his mouth. “This doesn’t explain why now of all times you’ve decided to show yourself.”

Aoba shrugged, airily waving a hand as though that explained everything. 

“I don’t know. It’s not all that straightforward, okay? We’re not some light switch that can be flicked on and off.”

“But there must have been something.”

“I realized I had moments where I could push him down, really shut him up something fierce. So I thought, hey, time to take this body for a ride again.”

Aoba reached a hand up, nails scratching idly at his skin. By the time he stopped, there were red, raw trails where he touched. 

“It wasn’t good this time, not like before. I’m a brawler, sure, but it’s no fun when you can’t fight back,” Aoba said. He paused between words, like he was swallowing around something before he could speak. 

Aoba shook his head when the words became stuck. He scratched at the back of his hand until it took on the same reddened appearance as his neck. Mink reached forward to settle his own hand over Aoba’s to still his movements. Aoba startled hard, pulling his hands to his chest as if they’d touched open flame. 

“I’m still hungry,” Aoba said before Mink could apologize.

Mink cleared his throat in acknowledgment, picking up the empty bowl in hand as he stood. He went to the kitchen with slow steps, taking his time as he reheated the leftover soup on the stove top. The chill from the open window had seeped into the bedroom by the time he returned, and he latched it before setting the refilled bowl on the nightstand.

Aoba didn’t react to the noise, nails at his wrist now. He let out a single wet sniffle, his blindfold darkened with damp spots. His lips were thin and chewed upon.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Mink said. He knew Aoba wouldn’t, though he nodded once in recognition of the words. 

Mink meant to leave, but found his footsteps halting the moment he was under the frame of the door. Rooted to the spot, his attentions continued to focus on Aoba. He stayed under the frame, watchful and silent, waiting for Aoba to do something- anything. 

“I might be blind but I’m not an idiot,” Aoba snapped after several minutes. “So it’d be great if you’d stop gawking.”

“Of course,” Mink said, chest warming with embarrassment. 

He spent the rest of the evening in the living room focused on the creation of a new ornament, all fine beads and rare feathers, a work that required the entirety of his attention. When his eyes grew tired and his back ached from being hunched over so long, he looked up to the clock. He considered sleeping on the couch. It’d been so long since he’d so much as rested lying down that he’d forgotten what it felt like.

A small metallic clicking took his thoughts from the couch, his gaze flitting around the room until he found the source. Ren had wandered into the room. His movements were a halting jerk, some part of his structured damaged near the hip that hampered his walk cycle. He was harmless and barely there, no more underfoot than a ghost.

“Did you get kicked out as well?” Mink asked.

Ren’s ears twitched to focus on Mink, and Mink stood with a groan as his bones shifted and joints cracked. The ache in his back flared when he went to pick Ren up.

“I’m sure he’ll want you back sooner than he’ll want me,” Mink said, carrying Ren back to the bedroom.

Aoba was sprawled in the center of the bed, covers twisted and the stumps of his legs exposed. His blindfold was cast aside, and his hands covered his eyes. The soup Mink had left was untouched. Mink set Ren down on the bed, bringing his knee up to rest on the mattress as he took Aoba’s wrists in his hands, gently attempting to pull them away.

“He was supposed to be the reasonable one,” Aoba said, jagged and hiccupy. Tear tracks stained his cheeks. “And look where he got us. Fuck me for thinking he could manage on his own.”

Mink shifted more of his weight onto the bed, sitting on the side as he kept Aoba’s hands away from his eyes. He didn’t speak, didn’t attempt to scold or comfort. He thumbed gingerly at Aoba’s wrists instead, quiet and contemplative. He looked down at Aoba, and found his sightless sockets looking right back, tears caught on his lashes. Aoba dropped his head to the mattress after a moment, eyelids shutting as he sniffled again.

Mink nearly thought Aoba had fallen asleep when his lips moved.

“Maybe I’ll get some cool glass eyes,” Aoba said. His voice was hoarse and tired, the humor hollow.

“It’s my understanding that artificial eyes are made from plastic now,” Mink said in turn. 

“Well shit, that’s boring,” Aoba huffed.

“I’ll look into it for you,” Mink promised.


	4. Chapter 4

Mink took Aoba outside when the weather began to warm, the snow melting to slush and patches of green sprouting up. There were two rocking chairs that Mink had found in town, a matching set with old, worn wood. Aoba settled his arms on the rests, rocking slightly as the sun warmed his pale skin. Mink kept his gaze ahead, settling on a doe and her two fawns.

“What is there to do out here?” Aoba asked, breaking the silence. The doe raised her head at his voice. 

“More than there is to do in Midorijima,” Mink said. 

It was the truth, but one he hadn’t meant to speak. Something that had resided in the back of his mind for months now, never quite able to make it past his tongue. The life that Aoba had known, the people, the places, were nothing more than the past now. When Aoba had originally failed to stop Toue, his power had spread, engulfing the entire island before moving farther.

Mink had made no move to stop it. His intention had never been to do anything of the sort. Killing Toue was what was important. Whoever stepped in to uphold his place, his beliefs, attempt to usurp the power he’d gained, none of that mattered to Mink. It was only after having found Aoba that his plans had stretched to living beyond that day.

“Bummer,” Aoba mused. He stopped rocking, fingers tapping against the armrest. “Although I guess that’s for the best, or something. I mean, I couldn’t exactly waltz back into everyone’s stupid lives after all this time. Shit would be real weird.”

Mink grunted his agreement, striking a match and holding it to his tobacco-filled pipe. He took in a deep breath, lungs filling with smoke that he held in one, two, three seconds before he was blowing it out his nose in twin plumes. He glanced to the floor of the porch at the click clack of short nails. Ren looked up at him, eyes light and shining with the virus that hadn’t been fixed.

Mink let his gaze fall back to the doe and her fawns. He took another deep drag from his pipe as he wondered how his life could be so complicated when it had been narrowed down to so little. 

\---

“Suppose you didn’t keep in touch with anyone from the island, huh?” Aoba asked, head tilting and goosebumps littering his skin as Mink wove a string of beads in behind the shell of his ear.

“No reason to.”

“I think you mean, _way_ reason to,” Aoba said, petting Ren, who had taken to curling up in his lap.

“And why is that?”

“The uh─ fuck,” Aoba said. “The one with the─ shit. Goddamnit.”

Mink’s hands paused. It wasn’t the first time Aoba had reacted in such a way while trying to speak.

“Goofy-ass blond with all the metal,” Aoba settled on.

“Noiz?” Mink asked, going back to decorating Aoba’s hair.

“Was that his name? Jesus, how dumb. No wonder I couldn’t remember it. Anyway, he was decent when techno-bullshitery, yeah?”

“I suppose so.”

Aoba’s shoulders drew together, lowering when he let out a lingering sigh. He rolled Ren onto his back, taking his small paws in hand to squeeze them.

“You think I’d miss it more, the whole Midorijima thing. But I have to admit, I kinda don’t. The old days, the real old ones, those I miss. But everything else? Nah. Doesn’t feel like my life anyway. It’s all a flash in the pan to me, like I’m looking at it through blinds. All those people-- they liked him. Not me.”

“But you’re the same,” Mink said, half distracted as he set his attentions to a new lock of hair.

“They wouldn’t think so,” Aoba said. “Hell, do you even think so?”

Mink separated the hair before him into four strands, expertly weaving them together, slipping in the odd feather. The answer was not black or white, yes or no to him. There was oil and water in Aoba’s body, and it couldn’t mix. 

“Two sides, one coin,” Mink settled on saying. 

Aoba snorted, tossing his hair and halting Mink’s progress.

“Now this spoilsport,” Aoba said, jerking his chin at Ren. “You would not believe this guy. Real cute mug, sure, but an allMATE he’s not.”

It was confirmation of something Mink had come to suspect long ago. Ren’s scent was electric and humming, but too warm to be entirely artificial.

“But I guess he’s me too. Kind of. Me who jumped ship. Which, I gotta hand it to him, was brilliant. I’d have done the same thing if I figured it would have worked.”

“Would you like for me to see if he can be fixed?” Mink asked. 

“I guess,” Aoba said, affecting a blase air. “He wasn’t exactly a bad guy. Which was kinda the problem, now that I think about it.”

Broken glass, Mink decided, was what Aoba had become. Even before Toue had come into the picture. He was fractured and scattered, and even with the shards gathered and pieced together again, the cracks would forever be evident. Whether or not Aoba knew it himself remained to be seen.

When Mink finished, Aoba ran his hands through his hair, taking in the new additions. He rolled beads between his fingers, grazed the edges of feathers. He hummed in approval at the changes, letting his hands fall back to Ren. Aoba toyed with Ren’s collar, idly flicking the studded spikes.

“I can see if someone in town would be able to repair Ren,” Mink offered, storing his leftover materials in a small lacquered box.

“Cool,” Aoba murmured.

He went quiet after that, leaning forward to set Ren on his thighs before he sat back, hands resting in his lap. His lips thinned in thought, head tipped against the headboard of the bed.

“Think I could come with?” Aoba asked. His voice was soft and hesitant, like he was already afraid of the answer.

Mink didn’t speak immediately, instead standing to put the lacquered box away. He’d known Aoba would eventually ask this, to be let out of the house and taken to civilization. It was natural, a step in his recovery. It was something Mink had dreaded.

He was distant with the people in town, speaking to them only when necessary. He was content to have his isolated world, free of their interests. But Aoba was a curiosity that wouldn’t go unnoticed. 

“I’ll stay in the truck,” Aoba added. He was fidgeting now, fingers locked together. “I won’t cause trouble.”

Mink sighed, relenting at the promise. “I suppose you can accompany me, but as you said, no causing trouble.”

Aoba nodded, a grin breaking across his face. His teeth were white and shining, the expression childlike in its carefree nature.


	5. Chapter 5

Aoba touched everything, regardless of whether or not it was wise. He splayed his hands over old quilts, dipped his fingers into too-hot mugs of coffee and cocoa. He cradled fallen leaves and rubbed daisy petals until they were twisted nothingness, curled his grip around the bathtub faucets. He saw with his hands, and Mink had no reason to stop him. At least until Aoba’s hands were seeking him out.

“I don’t think I remember what you look like anymore,” Aoba had said one morning, setting his plate aside. 

“There’s nothing remarkable about my appearance.”

“Right, that’s what they all say. Now come over here,” Aoba said, gesturing for Mink to move closer.

Mink didn’t, and he watched as Aoba’s expression wound itself tight with annoyance.

“I promise I won’t try to gouge your eyes out this time,” Aoba huffed, fingers twitching with impatience.

Mink’s muscles tensed to move, but he held himself back, his rational self keeping him from moving. He wasn’t afraid of Aoba trying to hurt him. They’d had contact many times after that first outburst without trouble, easy exchanges that went off without a hitch. But it was always done out of necessity. 

This wasn’t necessity. 

“C’mon, I mean it,” Aoba said, and Mink drew back upon noticing how Aoba had taken to pulling himself forward, closer to where Mink was seated. “It’s way unfair for you to get to see my beautiful visage and leave me in the dark.”

Mink caught Aoba’s hands in his own as they reached for his face, firm as he stilled them. Aoba’s fingers curled uselessly as his lips pulled into an exasperated frown. 

“I really want this,” Aoba said, voice whittled into something small and desperate, betraying the expression on his face.

The words slackened Mink’s hold immediately, though his hands still remained as Aoba’s palms came up to cup his cheeks. Aoba’s skin was warm and clammy at once, fingertips soft as they traced over Mink’s face. He took in Mink’s cheekbones first, thumbs moving along them, a thoughtful noise building in Aoba’s throat. He took in the angles of Mink’s jaw next, touch light and tickling when it ghosted over the lobes of Mink’s ear, traced along the shell.

It was when Aoba’s touch came to the corner of his eyes that the tension returned. Mink’s lashes fluttered shut as they were touched, and soon the pads of Aoba’s thumbs rested on his lids. Aoba pressed down, not quite hard, not quite soft. Firm. Mink counted the seconds, halfway distracted by the beating of his own heart, its usual steady rhythm jumping.

His hands were halfway to Aoba’s wrists to pull his grip back when Aoba finally let up, humming to himself. Mink opened his eyes to find them spotted with white, and was quick to blink clarity back into them. 

“What color are your eyes?” Aoba asked, tapping the tip of Mink’s nose.

“Like yours,” Mink said.

Aoba paused.

“Like mine, or like _his_?” he asked.

“Yours,” Mink clarified, recalling the shining gold from so long ago.

The laugh that rose in Aoba’s throat was warm and satisfied, if not a touch unhinged. 

“Great, just great,” Aoba said between his laughs, his hands sliding down until his fingertips rested against Mink’s lips.

Mink waited for Aoba’s hands to continue on, but they lingered, tracing his Cupid’s bow thoughtfully.

“Smile for me,” Aoba said.

“Why?”

“Because I never saw you smile before.”

“I see no reason to smile on command,” Mink said.

Aoba drew his lower lip under his teeth, a crease forming between his brows as they knitted together. Mink had learned Aoba’s expressions over time, and this one never preceded anything good.

“Fuckin’ rude,” Aoba said, turning his nose up. “Acting like you have nothing to smile about. Is that really it? Is this─ whatever we have here, some new kind of punishment you’ve decided to shackle yourself to now that the old baddy is dead?”

Mink’s tongue flicked out in something akin to nervousness, catching on Aoba’s fingertips. No, this wasn’t punishment. It was a duty, but not a consequence. Somewhere along the way, a change so slight he saw it only now, his life had shifted, his self liberated. He was nearly afraid to acknowledge it, this contentedness, as though admitting to it would make it vanish.

So he didn’t speak it, instead let his lips curve at the ends under Aoba’s touch, allowing him to take in the shape of his smile. Aoba’s expression was quick to mimic Mink’s.

“That’s more like it,” Aoba said, and his touch lingered for so much longer than it needed to.

Mink found he didn’t mind, and his smile stayed.

\---

Aoba was beautiful in a way that no one had ever warned Mink about. In how he’d pointedly look past Mink, just to the left of his face and above his shoulder, when he was mad. In the way his head would bow in quiet thought, or how it would cock in the most miniscule motion when Mink’s footsteps approached. 

Even his distress was beautiful, the way he’d still struggle on occasion when his mind slipped to a past he couldn’t entirely recall, the curl of his fingers when he scratched at Mink in a bid for freedom when the sockets of his eyes were being cleaned. The tone of his muscle under pale skin as he pushed at Mink in a vain attempt at escape.

It wasn’t looks alone, though. It was the mindless, soft sounds he made as Mink eased his fingers through Aoba’s damp hair, working in shampoo and conditioner. The muffled sniff he gave after every sneeze and how his back cracked every morning as he stretched his arms above his head. He had a sleepy way of pressing his lips together that Mink had come to regard as the start of his morning.

Mink smiled more than he knew, and he let Aoba map each instance with his hands, whether they touched his lips or rested on the creases beside his eyes. Aoba smiled in turn, and he didn’t shy when Mink reached out to memorize the expression as well, though he’d already done so with his eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

Aoba’s first complaint when Mink helped him into the car was that it was too cold for a spring morning. Mink explained briefly, with words short and succinct, that you couldn’t really trust American weather. Sunshine was no hallmark of warmth, a deceitful lure this time of year to draw people out of their homes.

Aoba’s response was to pull at the strap of his seatbelt before settling into his seat, one hand running over the length of the long braid Mink had done that morning to keep it out of his way. He was still toying with the braid when Mink climbed into the cabin of the truck, Huracan perched neatly on his shoulder.

The engine turned over twice before it came to life, and it wasn’t long before they were driving along the soft dirt path that would take them to the main road. After reaching the smooth cement that would lead them to town, Aoba rolled down his window, his bangs whipping against his face and Ren’s tongue lolling out of his mouth as he leaned out to catch the wind.

Mink glanced at Aoba using the rear view mirror. There was a brittle quality to him, his body swaying when they took curves, his hand coming up to touch at his sunglasses again and again. His shoulders hunched, body shrinking in on itself as he was startled by the dips and bumps of the road. 

Not for the first time, Mink wondered if he should never have agreed to taking Aoba with him. But he had given his word, and admitted to himself it was better to take Aoba along than to worry about what trouble he’d get into on his own. Aoba had started to display an increase of mobility as of late, and Mink knew the screen across the window would only stop him for so long.

Mink pulled off the road and into a small clearing a quarter mile from town, out of the way and free from curious eyes. The engine ticked as it cooled, Mink’s key ring jingling as he turned off the ignition. Huracan resettled his weight as he shifted from foot to foot on Mink’s shoulder.

“I hardly think I need to ask you to stay put,” Mink said as he undid his seatbelt and opened the door.

Aoba snorted. “Look, I told you I’d stay put. Plus knowing you, you parked years away from town just in case.”

Mink didn’t respond.

“You dick,” Aoba said, but it was lighthearted along with his smile. “I didn’t actually think you’d do that, but─ eh. You have your reasons.”

“I do,” Mink agreed, coming around the side of the truck to Aoba’s window. He eased his hands under Ren’s arms, hoisting him up. 

The apprehension in Aoba’s face was immediate, showing in the thin line of his lips as he hands patted the unoccupied space of his lap.

“Can’t you just ask if they can fix him first?” Aoba said, voice drawn and tight.

“I have no doubt they’ll need to see Ren in-person to decide what course of action to take.”

Aoba hit his head back against his seat, sighing dejectedly. His body gave a soft, surprised jerk when Huracan hopped from Mink’s shoulder and into the cab of the truck with a graceless motion. He ruffled his feathers as he rebalanced himself, toes curled to grip the base of the open window.

“Bird brain sticking around?” Aoba guessed.

“It’s for the best,” Mink said.

“Yeah, sure, because I can’t be trusted. D’you really think I’m going to haul ass out there or what? I don’t even know the language out here, and I can’t imagine how people would react if they found some blue-haired half-person dragging himself around.”

“You’re not half a person,” Mink said, the words bitter on his tongue, an unpleasant taste lingering.

“Whatever. Go get Ren checked out and do your thing,” Aoba said, turning his head away.

Mink stood at the window, eyeing Aoba. He wanted to argue, to tell Aoba that he wasn’t half of anything, that he was the whole of everything. The entirety of Mink’s secluded world. Huracan stretched a wing out languidly, his beak preening the long, pink feathers. A demonstration of impatience.

“I’ll return as soon as I can,” Mink said.

\---

Two weeks, they told him. That was the soonest they could have Ren fixed, if he could be fixed at all. His model was old and unfamiliar to them, and his language settings were currently inaccessible, stuck in Japanese. Mink could tell by the expressions on their faces that for all their want to help, even they weren’t sure they could manage much.

Mink thanked them for their time and said he’d consider it. He wouldn’t consider it though, because Aoba wouldn’t consider it.

Mink held Ren in the crook of his arm as he trekked back to the truck, sweat beading on his brow as the cold sun beat down on them. The sky was a blinding sort of blue, the world around him washed out in its brightness. His stride lengthened the closer he was to the clearing.

He found Aoba where he’d left him, arm resting on the sill of the car window, head pillowed on it. He didn’t stir as Mink approached, his breathing soft and sleepy. His sunglasses were angled precariously, half off and threatening still to fall.

“Aoba,” Mink said softly as he approached.

Aoba jerked up, confused and not quite awake. His hands sought out Ren on his lap, as they often did after he woke. Mink could smell the panic rise as Aoba found his lap empty, the scent stark and stinging.

“Two weeks at the very least,” Mink said, reaching into the cab to place Ren back on Aoba’s lap.

Aoba immediately scooped Ren up like something fragile and overly precious, one of a kind. Mink supposed that’s what Ren was.

“Fuck that,” Aoba said. “Fuck that right over a table and don’t call it the next day.”

Mink rested his elbow against the open window, eyes taking in Aoba’s face. His lower lip was chapped, red and raw. In the sunlight, his skin seemed paler, nearly translucent. The arm of his sunglasses was crooked from where he’d lain on it. Mink wanted to reach out and fix it.

“Is there anything you’d like me to get for you in town?” Mink asked.

Aoba cocked his head thoughtfully, setting Ren in his lap before his hands were groping eagerly for Mink. He found one of Mink’s hands and covered it with both of his own, squeezing tight. His palms were cool and a little damp, and it reminded Mink of the recently deceased.

“Booze,” Aoba breathed. “The hard stuff, too. No stupid local brews.”

Mink shut his eyes as the words sunk in, lips pulling into a grimace. Of course Aoba would ask for such a frivolous thing.

“And a greasy burger,” Aoba added. He was squeezing Mink’s hand again, hard and excited. “Fries and a milkshake. Strawberry, okay?”

“Aoba,” Mink said. He let Aoba’s hands stay on his.

“Yeah?”

“There isn’t a fast food restaurant for another half hour.”

Aoba’s grip went slack, hands falling back to his sides. He took on an air of dark disappointment, shoulders weak as they slumped. He looked sullen as a teenager, and considering his life experience, Mink supposed that’s what he was. Immature, hot-tempered, and with the same dangerous need to dabble in debauchery whenever the chance arose.

But now those chances were slim─ no, not slim. None. Confined to the quiet of Mink’s cabin, three dozen miles from the closest shop, Aoba was as much a prisoner as he’d been in Oval Tower. While the experiments and operations were long over with, his freedom would never be returned.

“I suppose, “Mink started, sighing at his own weakness, “that the drive wouldn’t be too bad.”

“Score,” Aoba said, the skin around his nose crinkling as he shot Mink a flashy grin.

“But first, grocery shopping,” Mink said, taking a step back from the truck. “Don’t move.”

Parking as far as he did from the shops being problematic became apparent as Mink lugged the week’s worth of groceries back to the truck. The handles of the bags left indents on his arm, and sweat found its way seeping into the roots of his hair. By the time he made it back, the sun had begun to lower itself and the bird song was quieting. Aoba remained in the cab, bobbing his head as he hummed to himself.

Mink loaded the groceries into the bed of the truck before he returned to the driver’s seat. Huracan was quick to reperch on his shoulder as Aoba’s humming petered off. Ren was curled silently in his lap, eyes half open and shining. 

“Please tell me you remembered the booze,” Aoba said as the engine came to life.

“Cinnamon whiskey,” Mink said.

Aoba gave a low, appreciative whistle, clicking his seatbelt back into place. His humming was softer than before when it started again, occasionally lost to the wind that whipped through the open window as Mink drove. They were halfway to civilization when Aoba shifted in his seat, pulling the hood of his coat up and coiling the braid of his hair to hide it behind his head.

“I want to order for myself,” he said.

“They won’t understand you.”

Aoba touched at his sunglasses and brushed back his bangs. He pulled his hood further forward, hiding the blue of his hair.

“You could teach me what to say, couldn’t you?”

Aoba had a point, and Mink saw no reason to refuse. He spent the rest of the drive teaching him what so say, Aoba’s words a messy slur that slowly improved with each new try. By the time they reached the drive through, the words had ceased to have any real meaning to Mink, like a word seen too many times.

When the speaker asked for their order, Aoba’s seatbelt was off in a hurry, his entire body nearly lunging across the cab. His hands came to rest on Mink’s thigh for balance as he leaned over.

“I want a cheeseburger and fries with a─ a strawberry milkshake,” he said, his pronunciation imperfect but impressive.

Mink ordered similarly, save for the milkshake. As he pulled the truck forward to pay for and pick up their food, Aoba settled into the middle seat, leg pressing to Mink’s, his face angling away when they reached the window. His hands went clumsy as he momentarily fumbled the bag of food Mink gave him, setting it in his lap when his drink was passed over as well.

Twilight was heavy by the time they reached the main road to return home, and Aoba vibrated a certain kind of excitement, still seated in the middle of the cab. He set his milkshake between his thighs to hold it upright as he began to root through the bag, pulling a French fry out and popping it into his mouth.

“No eating in the truck,” Mink tutted.

“Oh, please. If we wait until we’re back, everything’ll be cold, and I bet you don’t have a microwave.”

Both counts were true, and Mink invested no more effort into stopping Aoba, even when he popped the lid of his milkshake off and dripped a fry in.

“Bet you’re never tried this before,” Aoba said.

“I don’t make bets I know I’ll lose.”

Aoba snorted.

“You don’t know what you’re missing. I’ll be a nice guy and enlighten you.”

He raised the fry up, one hand cupped under it to catch any drips of ice cream. He held it midair, and Mink realized Aoba was waiting for him to lean in, unable to find Mink’s mouth on his own. Steering the truck off to the side of the road, he put on the parking break and leaned over, lips brushing against Aoba’s fingers as he took the French fry into his mouth.

It was sweet and salty, hot and greasy. All the things meant to appeal to his tastebuds. He licked his lips once and sat back, killing the ignition. The first stars of the night sparkled above them, and Mink decided it wouldn’t hurt to eat his dinner while it was still hot.

“So, was that good or what?” Aoba asked, dipping another fry in his shake.

“The taste was favorable,” Mink conceded.

“You sound like Ren,” Aoba said around a bite of food. His sentence hitched in the middle, like he hadn’t meant to say it.

Mink ignored the comment for Aoba’s sake, reaching into the bag for his own food. He spread a napkin across his lap to catch any mess before unwrapping his burger. Beside him, Aoba let out a kiddish whine of delight as he tucked into his meal, squirming in his seat as he ate. While his enthusiasm wasn’t contagious, his enjoyment of the meal was. 

When they’d finished, Aoba was a content, limp mess against Mink’s side, leaning hard against him as Aoba patted his own stomach.

“Mm, it’s cold,” Aoba murmured his braid spilling over his shoulder as he flipped his hood down at last.

“Your window’s still open,” Mink noted, cleaning his hands on a napkin briefly before balling it up.

“Too full to move,” Aoba countered, head resting on Mink’s shoulder.

Aoba’s weight was comfortable against him, his warmth faint through his heavy parka. His breath left him in a small, sleepy yawn, sunglasses slipping forward. Mink considered easing across the cab to close Aoba’s window for a total of three microseconds before his hand was reaching for the heater instead, flicking it right to full blast. 

“You’re the best,” Aoba said, looping his arms around Mink’s own arm to hug it close. 

Part of Mink’s mind desynchronized from the rest of himself at the contact. The words and gesture had been casual, but the memories they stirred were not. It’d been so long since Mink could recall being given praise, of receiving a kind touch. He could barely dredge the last instance to the forefront of his mind, the recollection more of a fever dream than reality.

He was young, very young. A time before hate had become the blood that beat in his heart, revenge the sole thing that kept him putting one foot in front of the other. That time had come again now, his first thoughts when he woke no longer of violence and plotting, but of Aoba’s well-being. 

Aoba was alive because of him, and Aoba had given him life in turn. It was more than he could have ever asked for. More than he knew he deserved.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I had Fanime coming up so I put updating on the back burner in order to\ pack. Updates should be pretty regular for the month of June, and then in July I have AX so I may be quiet again for that week.

When Mink grew sick, he pretended it wasn’t happening. That the scratch in his throat was not there, that the ache in his muscle, his bones, his very marrow, was due to the cold snap. The heaviness of the breath in his own lungs a side effect of his prolonged smoking habits. The heat that glazed his thoughts was... was what? He couldn’t think hard enough to come up with an excuse for that one.

“You don’t have to baby me,” Aoba said that afternoon, fingers fidgeting in his lap.

Mink’s breath came out ragged and rough in the seconds it took for him to respond.

“My intention isn’t to infantilize you.”

“Maybe, but it’s not normal, the way you treat me. And it’s not-- it’s not a guilt thing, is it? Not anymore at least.”

Mink stared at a barely there tangle near the end of Aoba’s hair, slipped his hand beneath it, studied it in his palm before starting to unknot it. His silence was his assent.

“Maybe what I should have said was that you don’t have to baby me if you don’t want to. But I guess I don’t mind it, really,” Aoba said. “It’s kind of nice, even.”

Mink continued to fixate on the tangle, movements small and delicate as he reversed the damage.

“It makes me feel like so much more than I am. Like a god or something, yeah? I don’t know, maybe I am to you. That’d be real rich.” Aoba’s voice faded as cheeks became touched with pink. “Is that it, then? Is that the case?”

Mink ran his fingers through the now smooth lock of hair. Aoba’s words entered his thoughts through a filter, sick and hot, but Mink understood the gist of them, knew that Aoba was slowly figuring him out. Aoba was just that to him, a higher being, divine, blameless. Most importantly, he was Mink’s, a quiet secret in the middle of nowhere.

“Well then,” Aoba said, nearly crowing. His smile was flattered and abashed at once, the look of someone who knew they shouldn’t give in, but whose ego was too hungry to turn down compliments. “I guess I can allow you to spoil me. But you have to take care of yourself first to do that.”

Gods were so greedy for worship.

“Then I will continue to care for you,” Mink said, winding the lock of Aoba’s hair around his finger before letting it fall away.

Aoba’s fidgeting stopped as he considered the words fondly. He seemed to come back slowly from his own thoughts, smile faltering for a second before outright falling, a pout replacing it.

“Ugh, you got me way off point. What I’m trying to say is yeah, okay, take care of me all you want, but look after yourself first,” Aoba said, reaching forward with one hand, patting inquisitively until he found Mink’s face. “You’re on fuckin’ fire, man.”

“I’ll manage,” Mink said. Aoba’s palm was deliciously cool against his skin, and he leaned into the touch.

“Famous last words. When’s the last time you so much as slept in your own bed? You’re always in that chair, it can’t be good for you.”

The temporary relief from the heat was gone in an instant, Aoba’s hand falling away as he braced his palms against the bed, shifting his body closer to the wall. He patted the open space next to him expectantly. Mink scrubbed his hand over his face, his chest rattling as he gathered his senses.

“I’m fine,” he said. He didn’t sound fine, not even to his own ears.

“Get in your own goddamn bed or I’ll jump out of it.”

“It’s not big enough for the both of us.”

Aoba’s laugh left him in a staccato sort of cackle, his smirk astonished and smug at once.

“It seems you’ve forgotten I don’t take up much space,” Aoba said. He wiggled his stumps in a way that was both gruesome and gleeful. Bile burned in the back of Mink’s throat. He wasn’t sure if it was from the display or his sickness.

Mink tried to stand up, which he couldn’t do. His body sagged forward instead, bones molten hot yet lead heavy. He tried to catch himself, but all muscle in his arms went slack the second he tried to use it. Hands gripped his clothes, tugging him farther onto the bed, Aoba’s grunts of exertion barely registering in his ears.

When Mink’s eyes focused, he found the ceiling in front of him. Aoba’s hands were still at his clothes, pulling his knit cardigan off. He didn’t think much of it; didn’t think much of anything. His thoughts were swamp-murky and thick, body pulled this way and that. Sensation resurfaced slowly and in glimpses.

Cool skin against his, a hand sifting through his hair. The flutter of wings and words he was unable to focus on, a short back and forth conversation. The next thing he registered was a cold compress against his forehead and an irritated sigh.

“And you’re always calling me troublesome,” Aoba said. “You’re the one who’s going to be troublesome as fuck if you give up the ghost now. I can’t exactly rely on wonder dog and bird brain to care for me.”

Mink felt his lips move, but no sound reverberated in his throat. Maybe he wasn’t speaking. Maybe he was smiling. Fingers slid their through his own, lacing them together and squeezing. He squeezed back, or at least tried to.

“Okay, for real though, this isn’t cute. So get better, okay?”

Mink hummed and nodded then, letting the fever heat overwhelm him.

When he opened his eyes again, the room was red with dusk, and still everything was too hot. His thoughts were glazed and unclear, and when he flexed his hand, he found Aoba’s no longer there. He patted clumsily beside himself, the space where Aoba had been now empty. When he made to sit up, his entire body ached down to the marrow, the movement labored and slow.

He propped himself against the headboard, the compress falling from his forehead. He tried to blink the blurry haze from his eyes and found the effort fruitless. He heard, however faintly, a shuffling sort of drag coming closer to the room. Louder than that, he could hear strained, breathless pants.

An emotion Mink could not quite understand, something deeper than sadness and pity, flooded through him. He didn’t want to see what was next, but his gaze focused anyway as Aoba came into view in the doorframe. His skin was flushed red from his efforts, one hand planted on the floor to pull himself along, his other holding a half full glass of water.

Mink could see the shine of what Aoba had spilled on himself.

“Wait there,” Mink said, voice hoarse and nearly gone.

Teeth flashed as Aoba raised his head, a pleased smirk on his face.

“Get enough beauty rest?” he asked.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” Mink said. He managed to get his legs over the side of the bed, feet planted on the hardwood floor.

“Yeah, well neither should you, so consider it even.”

Mink’s mind jarred as he stood, the blood slow to reach his head. He put no effort into hiding his hindered stride. It wasn’t like Aoba could see it. What Mink could see as he approached Aoba was a different story.

There were nicks and scrapes along the skin of his thighs that was bare beneath the hem of his shirt. A jagged red cut along his palm he tried─ and failed─ to hide by fisting his shirt sleeve against it. Mink shut his eyes tight for a moment before moving closer, kneeling when he reached Aoba and taking the glass from his hand to drink it.

“Sorry,” Aoba said. “Like, in advance. Turns out a bird and a blind guy don’t make a good team in the kitchen.”

“I’ll worry about that later,” Mink said as he downed the water. It was an instant relief against his parched throat.

He stayed on the floor with Aoba as he gathered his thoughts and strength. He needed to get Aoba back in bed and treat his injuries first and foremost, but when he reached out, Aoba flinched back at his touch.

“Don’t you dare,” Aoba said, nearly hissing. “I’ll get back in bed when I’m good and fuckin’ ready for it. Plus in your state, you’d probably drop me like a rock.”

Mink didn’t think Aoba could make it back into bed, but his second point rang true.

“You take care of you, and I’ll take care of me,” Aoba said with an air of finality. 

Speaking struck Mink as inefficient at that point, a waste of what little energy he had. He took Aoba’s words to heart instead, forcing himself back to his feet. He went through the motions of self care in a fog, only duly aware of his actions. By the time he made it to the kitchen, he’d nearly forgotten Aoba’s apology.

At least until his gaze fell to the floor, catching sight of the glass pieces scattered like birdseed across it. He crept around the worst of it, a hand rubbing at his temple as he refilled his glass, drinking deeply from it. What he took from the fridge was simple, fruit with no need for preparation or peeling. He had a final glass of water before making his way back to the bedroom.

Aoba was still on the floor, albeit next to the bed. His arms were draped over the mattress, his head resting on them. He barely stirred at the sound of Mink’s footsteps.

“Okay, so I may need a little help,” he admitted sourly. 

Mink hummed his understanding as he set the fruit he’d fetched on the bedside table, crouching down to set his hands on Aoba’s waist. Mink lifted Aoba onto the bed in a single, swift motion, doing his best to ignore how his head swam from the action. Traces of red smeared across the sheets as Aoba shifted his way close to the wall, leaving room for Mink.

It took no coaxing this time for Mink to join Aoba. Taking an apple from the bedside table, Mink carefully pressed it into Aoba’s uninjured hand. Aoba pushed it back at him.

“You need it more than I do,” Aoba said.

“One bite," Mink insisted, compromise all he could hope for.

Aoba reached out, groping clumsily for the apple. He brought it to his mouth, teeth sinking into the skin as he tore a piece away. He wasn't even done chewing when he gave it back. Mink set it once more on the table before he went to stand again.

“And where do you think you're going?" Aoba asked, reaching out to grab at Mink's shirt. He missed, and the air turned awkward as he tried to pass the gesture off as nothing more than a dramatic wave of his hand.

“Need to clean up your hand,” Mink rasped.

“My hand is just peachy.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Look,” Aoba said, voice tight with annoyance. “I was a good boy for you and bit the apple, so you can return the favor by staying here.”

Mink pinched the bridge of his nose. He wanted more than anything to stand, to get what he needed in order to care for Aoba. But what he wanted was far from what he could do, so he stayed in bed as Aoba wished.


	8. Chapter 8

\---

Mink spent a number of days performing only the most basic of actions when he wasn’t stuck between states of being laid out on his back, the only other option an intense vertigo. He fed himself meager amounts and drank what he could, even when the water tasted metallic to his tongue. He went in and out of consciousness, fever dreams devouring him.

Sometimes when he woke, Aoba was worryingly quiet, responding only with a hum when Mink asked if he was there. Other times, Aoba was gone. He heard the rustle of Huracan’s feathers on occasion, his deep voice asking the useless question of how Mink felt. 

“Fine,” Mink responded every time. He did not feel fine. He felt like death.

When he finally woke and found his vision clear, thoughts no longer thick and fever broken, it was the sweetest of reliefs. He turned his head immediately to look beside him to find Aoba next to him. He was curled up and small. Not thinner, but... duller. Like his life had been draining away as he was left with no one to tend to him.

He stirred when Mink went to sit up, lifting his head at the sound, reaching out and brushing his fingers against Mink as he stood.

“On a scale of one to already six feet under, how are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Mink said, reveling in how the word remained still when he stood.

“You’ve been saying that since this started. Doesn’t mean bubkiss to me.”

“For once I mean it,” Mink said.

He went first for the cupboard in the bathroom, fetching the first aid kit at last. When he returned to the room, Aoba had wriggled his way over to where Mink had been, enjoying the warmth that had been left behind.

“Your hand,” Mink prompted as he sat. 

Aoba stuck out his tongue, but complied, his fingers unfurling as he offered his palm to Mink. The cut was mostly scabbed over with dark blood, the widest part not yet covered. It needed stitches, though it was too late for those. Mink placed Aoba’s hand in his lap as he soaked a gauze with anti-bacterial. He pressed the pad to the cut and studied Aoba’s face for a reaction.

His face brightened with pain at once, and the life was there again, etched into his twisted smile and the hunch of his shoulders, the way his arm jerked in response. It was an odd sort of comfort to see him respond so suddenly. So lively.

Mink pressed a fresh gauze to the cut once it was clean, taping it to the back of Aoba’s hand to keep it in place. He went to peel back the cover once he’d finished, recalling the smaller injuries Aoba had sustained. Aoba knocked his hand away, grasping the blanket afterward and pulling it snug against his waist.

“No,” he said, flat and serious.

“No?”

“You’re doing the thing again,” Aoba clarified. “The thing where you put me first. Which, believe me, feels all kinds of great, but it stops being cool when it makes you sick. So, you know, go do your own thing before falling all over me.”

“It’d be best if you let me treat you immediately─”

“Listen up, buster. You’ve been sick for days and sweating up a storm. Trust me when I say you don’t smell much like your usual cinnamon self, so go wash up before putting your germy hands all over me.”

Mink rubbed at his temple and let a sigh past his lips. He replaced the contents of the first aid kit and closed the lid, setting it aside as he stood. There was a logic to Aoba’s words that Mink couldn’t deny. The last thing he wanted to do was pass the illness on to Aoba. His immune system was already questionable at best.

He rose from the bed and cracked his aching joints, regarding Aoba with a sideways glance before shaking his head. Never had Mink thought he’d end up whipped by this person, someone who was nothing more than a tool at the start. Now he was not only caring for him, but caring about his opinion.

Mink sank into the hot bath he drew halfway wishing his fever would return to distract him from the realization.

When he returned to Aoba, it was with what little food hadn’t spoiled. Overripe fruit and stale bread, the age of which Mink attempted to hide with a liberal amount of butter. His hair was damp and his clothes were fresh as he placed the plate in Aoba’s hands, and he didn’t miss how Aoba sniffed delicately at the air.

“Much better,” Aoba announced, gingerly prodding the contents of the plate before settling on the bread. 

Crumbs spilled across the bed at his first bite, and Mink reminded himself to change the sheets. When Aoba let him ease back the blanket he’d kept against his waist, Mink found the sheets strained with thin trails of dried blood, but it was inconsequential in comparison to the state of Aoba’s thighs.

They were a galaxy of glass shards and flecks of red. Aoba turned his head away as he continued to tuck into his toast, mouth too full to speak. Mink pulled a pair of reading glasses from the nightstand drawer before fishing out a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit. He planted one hand on a small patch of skin on Aoba’s thigh that wasn’t marred and leaned in.

The process was slow, and judging by the way Aoba jerked and flinched, painful. Mink hummed softly and thumbed Aoba’s skin when his flinches worsened.

“Couldn’t you have given me some of that whiskey before you started this up?” Aoba asked.

“I’ll give you some once I’m done. Consider it a reward.”

“Throw in a pizza and then I might actually consider it one.”

Mink glanced up, tweezers hovering above a particularly large shard. Aoba had moved on to the fruit, the remnants of an apple in hand, the core bitten through. Juice ran down his chin.

“Next time we go to town, we’ll get pizza,” Mink said.

Aoba barely jerked this time as the shard was pulled from his skin.

\---

Two tumblers full of whiskey later, Mink carried Aoba to the bathroom, the tub steaming with hot water. 

“Oh, that’s the ticket,” Aoba said, words touched with the halo of a slur. 

He rested his forearms against the lip of the tub as he sunk in, head tipped back as he sighed. Mink was careful to keep Aoba’s hair from the water. Washing that would have to wait, they decided. It would be too much for one day, Aoba said. Mink agreed. Lathering his hands with a sweet-smelling lavender soap, Mink began to bathe Aoba.

He ran his hands over Aoba’s slim arms, the muscles still weak and without definition. His palms moved down Aoba’s chest, the ribs still close to the surface, though no longer the jagged up and down of bones they’d originally been. Mink noted the goosebumps that broke out along Aoba’s skin as Mink washed his stomach.

Mink’s hands lost their usual mechanic movements, instead turning soft and slow. Borderline reverent. He apologized for his own illness with his touch, fingertips light as they skimmed over skin, careful as they washed Aoba’s thighs. When the water turned a barely there shade of pink from the blood, Mink drained the water only to refill it again.

It was as he started to bathe Aoba again, hands moving over his inner thighs, that Aoba shifted in the tub, hands gripping the rim as he pushed himself back and away from Mink’s touch. His breath gave an anxious hitch as he raised his head.

“That was unnecessary of me,” Mink said immediately, withdrawing his hands from the water. He’d never let his touch be so intimate after Aoba’s consciousness resurfaced, able to handle the finer details of cleanliness of his own accord.

“Whatever,” Aoba said. It didn’t sound like ‘whatever’ to Mink’s ears. “It’s not you. It’s not even me.”

Mink cupped his hands full of water and let it wash over Aoba’s chest, rinsing the last of the suds from him. Aoba’s chest rose and fell in short, shallow breaths, his fingers curling until his knuckles were white. The goosebumps remained.

“It’s this stupid body,” Aoba continued. “Half the time it reacts however the hell it wants. You think it’d listen to me every now and again.”

That was it, wasn’t it? Mink thought as he pulled the drain from the tub as the water turned lukewarm. Aoba was hindered, trapped. Confined to a form that he was so much more than. His body reacted in accord to its own recollections.

“How much do you remember?” Mink asked, hesitating a moment before clarifying. “From your time in Oval Tower.”

Aoba went stiff as the water seeped from the tub. His knuckles cracked from the force of how they curled.

“Dude, fuck off. You think I want to revisit that nightmare any more than you want to revisit yours?”

Mink pushed a towel into Aoba’s hands before taking one in his own, rubbing it against Aoba’s back. Aoba hunched forward, drying his arms in quick, irritated motions. When Mink handed him a shirt, he pulled it on without pause, seeming not to notice that it was backwards. His underwear suffered the same fate, and he clung tight to Mink as he was picked up, his body radiating a certain kind of subdued anger.

He folded his arms over his chest when Mink set him on the chair beside the bed, face tilted away from Mink.

“It’s not like I ever remember that much, which I figure is for the best. Mostly I just remember fucking up.”

“How so?” Mink prompted as he started to pull the dirtied sheets from the bed.

“I don’t even really know. I wasn’t exactly the one who decided to scrap that buffoon, but hell if I didn’t get pulled into it. If I had my way, I would have told him to cool his stupid jets and listen up, but alas, initiate robot uprising wasn’t exactly an option. Trust me, if it was you’d know for sure.”

Mink hummed in response to Aoba’s words, refitting the bed with clean sheets and a fresh quilt.

“Speaking of nightmares, though,” Aoba continued. “You sure talk a lot when you’re having them. Sounds like you went through some serious shit.”

It was Mink’s turn to go stiff, and as soon as the memories rose to his mind he was already fighting them back.

“It’s in the past,” Mink said.

“Like that means anything,” Aoba grumbled.

Mink found most of the tension had ebbed from Aoba's body as he shifted him back to the bed. Mink pulled the covers up to Aoba's waist, smoothing a hand over the few wrinkles. Aoba's thigh jerked, and Mink drew back quickly.

“Stupid, sonnuva─" Aoba started. “Do it again."

“Again?"

“You heard me. I'm the one in charge of this body, not the other way around."

Mink let his hand rest on the quilt again, and this time there was no movement beneath them.

“That's more like it," Aoba said, smile smug as though he'd accomplished a great feat.

Mink spent the rest of the day absorbed in quiet, leisurely activities. Washing old dishes, thumbing through favorite books. Filling in a crossword he'd started long ago. No matter how he concentrated, thoughts he'd pushed away for so long crept into his conscious. They were all of Aoba, and of what Aoba was to him.

More than someone he was indebted to. A companion? No, more than that. Something unnamed, impossible to pinpoint. Whatever it was, he wanted to go beyond it. Guilt rode heavy on his thoughts, Aoba’s reaction to his touch a constant reminder of the distance they needed to keep.

When the moon hung high and full in the sky and Mink returned to the bedroom, Aoba had tucked himself close to the wall once again. Ren was curled up in the spot where his feet should have been. It was hard to tell if either of them were already asleep. Only when he took his seat in the chair beside the bed did Aoba stir, head barely lifting from his pillow.

“You’re kidding me, right?” he asked.

“I never spoke to begin with,” Mink said, leaning forward to turn off the light.

“You know what I mean,” Aoba said, propping himself up on one elbow as he reached over to peel the covers back. “We’ve established it wouldn’t kill you to sleep in your own bed, so stop acting like it.”

Mink opened his mouth to argue, but Aoba was quick to cut him off.

“If you won’t sleep in this bed, then I won’t either,” Aoba said. “Capiche?”

All Mink could answer with was a sigh, moving to his feet for the briefest of seconds before he climbed into bed. Aoba tossed the covers over Mink, resettling himself with a yawn. Mink lay on his back, eyes opened and focused on the ceiling. He thought about the space between him and Aoba. Inches, and very few of them at that.

He could feel the lightest flicker of breath against his skin as Aoba breathed, still on his side and facing Mink. All it would take was one movement, a barely there shift for their skin to be touching. His heart beat low and loud as he considered the act, his blood all at once too hot for his own liking. He shut his eyes tight and gritted his teeth, at war with himself over the simple act of moving closer.

He couldn’t do it. It wasn’t his right.


	9. Chapter 9

The roof was still slick with spring storm rain when Mink climbed it to adjust the satellite. It was an eyesore, a thing he promised himself he’d never get. He was content with the quiet, with the many books he had, the tools of his trade. He had no use, no interest in television. 

That was before Aoba asked for it, voice soft and imploring and so, so fake. Mink fell for it anyway.

“The signal’s back," Aoba called, voice carried though the open living room window. 

Mink climbed down the ladder at that, leaving his muddied boots by the door as he let himself back in. Aoba’s face turned toward him at the sound of the door opening. His pale lips curved in a smile, and his hand patted the spot next to him on the sofa in a gesture for Mink to join him.

Mink sat without further coaxing, focusing his gaze on the screen before them. An old movie with actors he didn’t recognize played, and he barely took in their words as Aoba’s head tipped against his shoulder. He did that now, found small and simple ways to touch Mink. Fingers brushing against Mink each night as he pulled the covers over the both of them, or when removing his glasses the few times Mink dozed off still wearing them.

Even now, Aoba’s hand was dangerously close to Mink’s thigh.

Mink continued to attempt to devote himself to the movie. Aoba leaned more heavily against him.

Sometimes he asked for Mink to translate, other times, like now, he merely listened with an unsettling, tired sort of quiet.

By the time the credits began to roll, Aoba’s weight had become more and more apparent. As the announcer named the next movie to play, Aoba slid over with a _whump_ , head landing in Mink’s lap. Mink’s breath caught, muscles tight when Aoba’s hand brushed over his knee.

And promptly punched it.

“You’re the worst,” Aoba announced.

“I’ve heard as much, and many times,” Mink said. His voice shook at the end, and he didn’t need to see Aoba’s face to know he smiled at that.

“I can’t believe you’d make a blind double-amputee make the first move.”

“I’m sure if the situation was reversed, you’d have thoughts on that too.”

Aoba chuckled, and the warm thrum reverberated against Mink’s leg. Mink was acutely aware of how Aoba turned his head to nose affectionately at his pant leg.

“So, am I seriously going to have to?”

“Hm?”

“Make the first move,” Aoba clarified.

Mink’s throat constricted tight around his words when he went to speak, his hand stuttering for a moment when he raised it to rest on Aoba’s shoulder. His fingers curled weakly into Aoba’s woven sweater, the act no better at conveying his thoughts.

“I don’t even know what you want at this point,” Aoba said, voice no louder than a sigh.

Rain pattered lightly against the roof as silence hung in the air, electric as the lightning that the clouds outside threatened.

What did Mink want?

He wanted to be welcomed, to be touched. To be shown a kindness that had eluded him for far too long. He wanted what he had never had to begin with: forgiveness. Not of others, but for himself. But he had not earned it, felt in no way that he deserved it.

“I want to be with you,” Mink said eventually, because he knew Aoba could give him these things.

“That’s a start, but I think I’m going to need a few more details,” Aoba said, palm steady against Mink’s knee as he pushed himself up.

His hands came up to cradle Mink’s jaw, drawing him nearer, breath mingling as he stopped a few inches short. Aoba’s breath hitched soft in surprise, lost under a roll of thunder as Mink closed the gap, lips brushing against his. The touch was quick, barely there. Aoba was the one to pull him in for a second kiss, light and lingering. They seemed all at once to come together, as though there had never been space between them to begin with. 

Mink’s hands gripped Aoba’s waist as he surged into the kiss, a beautiful ache thrumming through his body as he gave into his desires. His tongue flicked out to trace along Aoba’s lips, drinking in his sweet, barely there laughter. When Aoba’s tongue brushed against his, it was the aggressive tangle that Mink had long imagined.

No, it was better than he’d imagined. Strong and interested without being overpowering.

Mink hands slid so that his arms encircled Aoba’s waist, dragging him close in a single motion, their chests pressing together. Aoba smelled of the sweet release of death that Mink had craved for so long, tinged with the striking note of life he’d come to embrace. He was perfection in this rotten world, lips plush and body yielding, his moan weak and throaty as Mink’s tongue continued to move along his.

Aoba’s hands trailed along Mink’s jaw before dropping lower, fingers catching on the fabric of his shirt, using him as an anchor. Aoba’s thighs straddled Mink’s lap as he rested his full weight on Mink. He was hungry, hungrier than Mink. Biting now, teeth nipping and grazing, breath shallow when he pulled back to catch it.

His trembling wasn’t immediately noticeable at first, barely there and fleeting. Mink chalked it up to his imagination before he felt it again, rocking through Aoba and into his own bones. Mink was quick to break the kiss, hands coming to Aoba’s waist, easing him back. A thin strand of saliva snapped as they parted, and Aoba lowered his head quickly, bangs obscuring his face.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I just─ gimme a minute, okay? I’ll be fine in a sec.”

His words rattled as hard as his body. Mink thumbed Aoba’s sides, studying the way he seemed to hunch in on himself, smaller and smaller.

“This is enough,” Mink said.

Aoba snorted in a way that said he was more upset with himself than the comment.

“Like hell it is. You’ve been waiting on me hand and foot all this time, and what do I do? Freak out like some schoolgirl when we start macking. What a fucking joke.”

Mink’s lips thinned as he took in Aoba’s words, picking them apart and reading between the lines.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Mink said.

Aoba sighed, his hold on Mink‘s shirt going slack as he sagged forward. He rested his head against Mink‘s shoulder, nose nearly brushing the crook of his neck. His breath was hot when he spoke.

“But I feel like I do, and it’s not like I don’t want it to. But this stupid body has its own ideas...”

“We have time,” Mink assured him, one hand slipping around to pet down the expanse of Aoba’s spine. 

He felt Aoba come undone in bits and pieces against him, the shudder of his sigh, the shake of his body. The way each inhale brought them closer, flush together. How he arched his back into Mink’s touch.

“Yeah, I guess we do,” Aoba agreed. He wriggled once to adjust his weight.

The image on the screen flickered, and neither of them noticed, too wrapped up in the comfort of one another to heed anything beyond themselves.


	10. Chapter 10

“You really do see me as some kind of a god, huh?” Aoba asked one morning, back pressed close to Mink’s chest as unseasonably early snow drifted down outside.

Mink didn’t speak in turn, opting to hook an arm over Aoba instead to show his attention.

“At first I was like, okay, maybe you’re playing nice with me because you feel bad,” Aoba continued. “But you can only feel so bad for so long, I figure. Like one day you had to realize you’ve done enough and could stop, but you’ve never stopped. You spoil me so fucking rotten, even if you pretend to be a hardass about it. And for what? Nothing. I can’t do jack shit in turn for you.”

“That’s not true,” Mink interrupted.

“If we’re being practical, it’s true,” Aoba argued. “And I mean, you’ve given me loads more than just food and shelter and shit. Like, here I’ve gone all this time thinking that being alive means cracking skulls and doling out knuckle sandwiches, popping whatever pills I can into my mouth. 

“And wouldn’t you know it, turns out living is chilling on my ass all day letting you pamper me. No─ not even that. Lazing around and being pampered, sure, but getting to listen to you move above. The way you turn pages, how your footsteps go so soft when you think I’m asleep. All that sappy shit.”

“Life is more than we initially take it to be,” Mink said. “And very rarely do we find true enjoyment in what we think we will.”

“Yeah, I guess. But─ I don’t know. It’s weird is all,” Aoba said, his voice losing its conviction halfway through his words. He let his hand come to rest over Mink’s, thumbing his knuckles thoughtfully. 

They lay safe in the warmth of the bed after that, bodies close, sharing heat and comfort as wind whistled through the cracks of the cabin. Mink’s heartbeat was a steady thud as he closed his eyes to memorize the situation, committing to memory how his own body fit to Aoba perfectly. He smiled at the pitch of Aoba’s breath as he nosed against the base of Aoba’s neck, planting a kiss on the raised impression of a vertebrae.

“Think you could you ever love a god?” Aoba asked.

“I already do,” Mink answered, serious and without hesitation.

“Mm, is that so?”

Mink nuzzled the back of Aoba’s neck as he nodded in confirmation

“Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate your devotion then,” Aoba said. His voice was honeyed and sweet, words an invitation.

Mink admired the way Aoba stretched as he was rolled onto his back, the gesture grand and luxuriating. He didn’t ask what was happening, smiling even as Mink’s hands moved down his front, undoing the snaps of his shirt.

Mink’s kisses started at the spot between Aoba’s collarbones. Pressing his lips to the soft skin, he could taste the barest hint of salt on his skin, lingering a moment before he began to move down. He splayed his hands across Aoba’s chest, palms so large as to nearly engulf Aoba as they slid over his flesh, coming to grip at his waist.

Mink’s kisses crept down Aoba’s front, and Aoba arched to meet his touch. The heady scent of destruction was borderline intoxicating, entirely undiluted with no notes of decay. It sent Mink’s pulse skipping hard enough that he heard it ring in his own ears. 

Aoba arched harder as Mink’s grip tightened. He peppered kisses against the expanse of Aoba’s stomach, lovely and soft from the easy life Mink had provided him.

Aoba’s hands found their way to Mink’s hair as he lingered, lips parting to trace his tongue over dips and curves. The fingers that twined through Mink’s locks weren’t quite gentle, but not yet rough. They were insistent instead, pushing down until Mink gave to the pressure and lowered his head further, lips on par with Aoba’s navel.

His kisses turned open mouthed and eager in a way he’d never before allowed himself to be. His canine caught light on the jut of a hipbone, his thumb easing over the red mark he left in its wake. 

"That’s right, just like─ _ah_ ─ like that," Aoba crooned, his fingers twisting in Mink’s hair.

When Mink reached the elastic of Aoba’s boxer briefs, he paused. The fingers in his hair trembled, and he was unsure if it was from pleasure or something darker. He listened to the shallow hitch of Aoba’s breath above him, glanced up to see the pale skin of his face colored a rosy pink.

“Go on,” Aoba urged, voice tight and muscles tense. “I’m not stopping you.”

The noise that left Aoba as Mink nosed at his erection through the thin cotton that covered it was nothing short of divine. Mink drew the sound from Aoba again as he mouthed the shape, breath a hot flicker as it puffed against the hardened flesh. He lathed the flat of his tongue along its shape from base to tip, the fabric left damp as the head of Aoba’s cock twitched responsively.

Aoba couldn’t snap his hips up quick enough when Mink’s fingers hooked into the elastic of his boxer briefs, his thighs straining against the bed. It was with a relieved sigh that his body hit the bed, his cock flushed red and veins standing starkly from it. 

Mink gently took the head of Aoba’s cock into his mouth, lips wrapping around it lightly. He swiped his tongue along the slit to clear away what pre cum had beaded, the skin twitching beneath the attention. He kept his hands on Aoba’s thighs as he felt his back arch again, the hands in Mink’s hair his leverage.

When the pressure on his scalp increased, Mink took more of Aoba into his mouth. His tongue cupped against the flesh, pinned it to his upper palate as he traced the veins. Aoba was heavy and pulsing in his mouth, the movements of his hips shallow and urgent. Mink’s heartbeat fluttered as he took in the weight of Aoba, the smell of him. He was heady and musky, and to Mink, perfect.

Mink noted every last detail as he let Aoba slip from his mouth only to take him back in again. He noted the bitter taste of Aoba and the way he moved to meet Mink’s mouth. He etched into his memory the feeling of Aoba’s fingers in his hair, twisting and grounded, but not pulling, not forcing. Urging and needy, that’s what it was.

Mink swallowed reflexively as Aoba’s cock bumped against the back of his throat. The keen Aoba let out brought goosebumps to his skin, and Mink repeated the movement, wanting to hear it again. The noise was sweet and open, something he’d never heard from anyone before, and something he wanted never to hear from anyone after. 

Aoba rocked his hips up to meet Mink’s mouth, setting a steady rhythm that didn’t last long. The movements grew more hurried and erratic with every bob of Mink’s head. His moans turned to short, choked gasps, words half-spoken. His hands froze in Mink’s hair when his hips finally stilled, muscles wound tight as he spilled white into Mink’s mouth.

Mink drank down Aoba’s cum with ease, feeling it smooth over the flat of his tongue before he swallowed, the head of Aoba’s cock twitching with orgasm. He let Aoba slip from his mouth as he went soft, strands of saliva snapping as he pulled back. Aoba’s hands fell limply to his sides, chest rising and falling with deep, full breaths.

“That,” Aoba started, cheeks glowing and lips curving into a smile, “is something I could get used to.”

Mink eyed the marks he’d left on Aoba’s body, blossoms of pink and pinches of purple. Sweat clung in a light sheen to his skin, and tension seemed to ebb from his body with each breath he took. His face had a certain serene, sated quality Mink could never recall seeing. A sort of tempered peace.

“So when do we get to your turn?” Aoba asked as the color faded from his cheeks. He pushed himself up to sit, his forearms shaking at the movement.

“This wasn’t about me,” Mink said.

Aoba scoffed. “Please, you can drop the act.”

Mink sighed as he lay down beside Aoba. His blood was still running hot, his own erection pressed hard against his pants, but his hands did nothing but fold over his own stomach.

“Oh my God, you’re being for real, aren’t you?”

“Very much so,” Mink said, pushing his tongue along his upper palate.

“Huh,” Aoba said, airy and confused. “Does that mean post-sex spooning is out of the question? Just asking for a friend, y’know.”

Mink’s eyes widened for a moment at the question, and he glanced to the side to read Aoba’s face. It was startlingly serious, his lips thin as he rubbed self consciously at his forearm.

“Or is there something about me you don’t dig? Do I look too weird now? God, I bet I’m so... _old_.”

“Absolutely not,” Mink said sternly, snaking one arm under Aoba in order to pull him close, easing up only when Aoba was tucked against his side.

Aoba sighed thoughtfully before he nuzzled against Mink’s skin, cuddling closer with a borderline puppyish glee.

“Really though, how long’s it been since shit went down? Five years?”

“No,” Mink said, dotting a kiss above Aoba’s arched brow.

Aoba hesitated, head tilting as he thought. “Ten?”

Mink paused, eyes cast toward the ceiling as he recalled the dates, starting from the day he'd first met Aoba in Midorijima, to when they’d left, to now. It hadn’t been quite a decade, but it was nearing on it.

“Around there.”

“Huh, must have been up in that ivory tower longer than I thought,” Aoba said. It was stunned and hollow, and he reached up to feel his own face, mapping each feature. “And I really don’t look old?”

“Not particularly,” Mink said, his words the honest truth and the span of Aoba's stay within the tower much longer than he liked to think about. 

It was that evening as the sun began to set and the last of the blue butterflies that had come to explore their frosted garden took their leave that Mink really thought about it. He glanced to Aoba, who was too busy tapping out a rhythm on the arm of his chair and soaking up the last rays of the sun to pay attention to Mink in turn. Aoba didn’t look a day older, his face unlined and unmarked, still youthful after all these years.

It seemed normal at this point. A reaffirmation that he was so much more than Mink had originally taken him to be.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R.I.P. Me, it's the end. 
> 
> As there was some confusion as to the timeline of this story after the last chapter that lead people to think there was a 10 year time skip, please look to [this post](http://ahmerst.tumblr.com/post/125951221040/just-a-little-clarification-on-loose-ends) for some clarification. Some of the dialogue near the end of the last chapter has been changed as well to clear things up.
> 
> My apologies for the confusion!

“Do you ever get tired?” Aoba asked.

“Yes,” Mink answered. “And when I do, I sleep.”

“Okay, thanks, smart-ass. That’s totally not what I meant.”

“Then elaborate.”

“I mean seriously tired. Not nap-it-off tired. Like you want to stop and shut down for a few months.”

Mink threaded a strand of hair through a lacquered bead. He wanted to tell Aoba that was normal, a fleeting condition experienced by humanity as a whole. But with a conscious life as short as Aoba’s, it must have seemed new and unusual.

“I’m not foreign to that sort of weariness,” Mink said simply.

“Mm, figured as much,” Aoba said. His lips parted hesitantly after that, tongue slipping over them as he thought. “Would you mind if I went to sleep?”

Mink’s hands hesitated halfway through twining a feather into Aoba’s hair. “You’re free to rest any time you desire.”

“It wouldn’t be resting so much as hibernating,” Aoba said.

Mink let his hands fall from Aoba’s hair, setting aside the box of ornaments before he moved to sit beside Aoba. He tipped his head back with a sigh as he reclined. He’d been expecting this so long, a fear lurking in the deepest parts of his mind, that he’d come to think it would never happen. Aoba’s cheek came to rest on his shoulder.

“Is it not possible for you to coexist?” Mink asked. He had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“If it were that simple, I would be the first in line for it,” Aoba said. “But it’s like─ okay. Think of a tree or something. It’s basically just... itself, in the beginning. Then it starts to grow and it’s like, yeah, cool, good job on being a tree. 

“But then it branches out. And that branch splits into two more branches. It’s all still part of the same tree, but you can’t suddenly take the branches and make them go back to being a single thing. Even if you tie them together, you still have two branches.”

Mink took the words in slowly, humming in understanding. “Well, it’s not within my power to force you to remain here with me. If you wish to leave, then so be it.”

Aoba’s hand sought Mink’s out, their fingers twining. His palm was soft and warm.

“It wouldn’t be forever,” Aoba said. “Hell, maybe I’ll get too bored after a few days and come back to bother you.”

“You aren’t a bother.”

“Please,” Aoba said, and he didn’t need to have eyes in order to roll them. “There have to be a hundred things you’d rather be than a man-servant to an invalid.”

“I couldn’t name them off the top of my head,” Mink said.

Aoba’s lips pulled together in the sort of pout that always preceded an argument. Instead of that though, Mink found Aoba’s hand slipping from his, palm planting itself on the mattress as he shifted. He hauled one thigh over Mink without a warning, his hands gripping Mink’s shirt as he tugged himself over to lay on Mink’s chest, ear to his heartbeat.

“I used to think I’d get out of here,” Aoba started. “Spend some time getting pampered, sure, but then get me some new kicks. Flashy peepers. There has to be some kind of technology out there, right?”

“Right,” Mink answered. He could recall articles in the newspaper in regards to experimental procedures of the sort, clipped out and now stowed in a drawer.

“But then I realized, whoa, I am totally fucking done with people after everything I had to go through. I like it here. I like you.”

Aoba turned his head to nose against Mink’s chest as he spoke, words half-muffled. Mink brought his hands to rest on the small of Aoba’s back, thumbing the fabric as he waited for Aoba to continue.

“Like I said, I wouldn’t ditch you forever. But I’m just so worn down with this living shit, you dig? And then there’s him, poking around in my head, wanting to sniff around. Not that he’s perfect now, ‘cause I’m perfect. But he could probably, I dunno, not dribble absolutely _everything_ down his front if you tried to feed him. Just most of it.

“So I figure maybe I’ll take it easy for a bit and let him enjoy the limelight. I─ fuck, I have no idea how to explain it. I’m just sorry, okay?” Aoba asked, his voice straining like it was about to break.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Mink reassured, pressing a light kiss to the crown of Aoba’s hair.

He tried to ignore the anxious discomfort that coiled in his stomach. Long ago he’d promised himself that this couldn’t last forever, and nearly as long ago he’d started to wish it could. Now that he had truly experienced what it was to live, he craved to keep it in his clutches. But after so much had been taken from Aoba, Mink couldn’t bring himself to ask him to stay, to take that freedom from him.

“And cut my hair while I’m gone. As much as I enjoy making your life stupidly complicated, it’s kind of a hassle to have it so long.”

“Of course,” Mink said, swallowing around the jagged ache in his throat.

Aoba nodded at that, his sigh a hot puff of breath through Mink’s shirt. His grip loosened as he resettled his weight.

“Get Ren fixed, too,” Aoba said, the tail of his words cracking as he hid his face in Mink’s chest. 

Mink moved a hand along Aoba’s spine in response, the gesture slow and continuous. He’d find Noiz somehow. The name wasn’t exactly common.

“Anything else?” Mink asked.

“I think that’s it for now,” Aoba said, weak and sleepy. His shoulders shuddered with a heavy sigh, body going slack against Mink’s.

Mink continued to pet the expanse of Aoba’s back, thoughtless and comforting, both to himself and Aoba. Aoba’s hands flexed tiredly against Mink’s front, kittenishly kneading his chest. When he pressed his palms to Mink’s chest to brace himself and lifted his head, Mink was ready for the kiss.

It was an apology, he could tell that much. Aoba’s lips were soft and sweet, giving in a way they never had been before. His breath flickered lightly against Mink’s skin, his tongue tracing along Mink’s lips until they parted. His tongue slipped into Mink’s mouth to twine with his, tasting him as their saliva mixed.

The kiss ended all too soon when Aoba turned his head away, letting it drop back to Mink’s chest with a low, tired noise.

Aoba didn’t speak, and neither did Mink. Instead they enjoyed the silence of the room and the comfort of one another’s bodies, the shared warmth and the beating of their hearts. Mink held Aoba throughout the night, slipping in and out of sleep, studying Aoba’s face in the moments of wakefulness he had. Nothing in Aoba’s features changed, his breathing a steady in and out.

When Mink woke to find light filtering into the room and bird song, he slowly shifted Aoba off him. When he stood, he took a moment to move Aoba to the warm spot his body had left, tucking the covers under his sides. It took more control than he knew he had not to wake Aoba, to instead begin his morning routine.

A hot shower, coffee, and breakfast later, Mink didn’t feel any more ready to rouse Aoba. He sat at the kitchen table instead, a finger tapping against the side of his glasses as he stared at yesterday’s paper without really reading it. He turned one page, and then the next, eventually making it to the end without having taken in a single word.

When the rustling noise came from down the hall, he tried to ignore it. It got harder when Huracan swooped into the kitchen, perching on the chair across from Mink. He ruffled his feathers once, head turned as he regarded Mink.

“He’s awake, you know,” Huracan said.

“I’m aware of it,” Mink said, refolding the newspaper and setting it aside. 

It took too many breaths, too many beats of his heart before he forced himself to his feet. He stared into a space that didn’t exist as he gathered his nerve, chest tight with anxiety. His pulse was a shallow throb in his ears as he approached the bedroom, knuckles white as he passed over the threshold. 

The air smelled different. Not wrong, no─ but as it had when he first brought Aoba home. A kind of sterile emptiness.

Aoba was still in bed, exactly where Mink had left him. The only change was that the quilt laid over him was rumpled, his arm hanging over the side. His fingers curled slowly to form a fist, then unfurled. The action was mindless and repetitive, and Aoba showed no sign of stopping as Mink approached him. He took a seat in the chair that remained by the bed, unused for so long now that it had gathered dust.

“Aoba?” Mink asked softly, the word barely a whisper.

The flexing of Aoba’s fingers remained the same, his expression passive. Mink’s blood went cold with loss as he sighed, elbows resting on his knees as he let his hand reach down for Aoba’s. It was warm in his hold, fingers slim and soft. Aoba’s movement changed then, fingers halting a moment, pressing against Mink’s palm. Prodding, tracing.

Investigating.

Mink waited for more, his heart in his throat. He watched Aoba’s face for some sign of awareness. 

Aoba’s fingers wormed their way between Mink’s, clumsy and unsure. He tried to curl his fingers fully and found it impossible, a furrow appearing between his brow as though he had no concept of what obstacle was stopping him. Mink shut his eyes and did not open them, instead focused on the movement of Aoba’s hand, the way his fingers moved against Mink’s skin.

Mink brought Aoba’s hand up to his face, pressing his lips against Aoba’s cool knuckles. He thought of what he’d been told, how this side of the coin still wasn’t _right_ , but better than it had been at least. Aoba continued to repeat the same small movement again and again, his confusion seemingly vanished, his face blank and careless once more.

There was a bone-deep ache in Mink as he sat with Aoba’s hands in his. He held Aoba’s hand firmer, tighter, a tether to the present as his thoughts went back to the past. He murmured the three words he’d wanted to say before, had repeated in his head many times. It was practice, Mink told himself. Practice for when Aoba could understand.

A sense of loss with an intensity he’d known once, and only once before, hit Mink. The past memory of it mixed with the scent of flesh burning in flames as his entire world incinerated. This loss was softer, but no lesser. The silence in place of screams was wholly as terrible, the early winter chill no better than the heat. But Mink had survived it before, and thanks to Aoba, he knew he’d survive it again, if only to tie up his loose ends.


End file.
